Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 11th November 2025 Grand Committee

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I will briefly respond to these amendments on cigars. It is clear that the parliamentary cigar club is out in force today, and the noble Lords have made their case very well. I will speak on snuff, because every argument made for cigars is undermined by including snuff within the amendments. The arguments around snuff are extremely different. Snuff use among our 16 to 24 year-olds has seen a fourfold increase over recent years. Snuff is easily available; it is flavoured and easy to hide for young people. Frankly, including snuff undermines the group of amendments.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments, which I have signed, and I will speak on the separation of cigarettes and vapes from other tobacco products, making the case, I hope, for a much stronger impact assessment. Certainly, the previous contribution made a strong case for trying to review these things in a proper impact assessment, which I think would be welcomed by everybody.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, made an incredibly forensic case about the separation, and his was an excellent contribution. Of course, I enjoyed the poetry, prose and passion expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Lainston, but the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, made a brilliant case for this. He reminded me of one thing in particular: the issue that we have in making sure that regulation is effective. I remember sitting on the other side of this Room on many occasions, making the case for better regulation, making the case that this had to be based on proportionality and evidence, and usually making the case that an impact assessment was wanting in a particular area. Very often, we were supported by the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay, in that case. The present Ministers will be dealing with many of the consequences of things that did not have proper impact assessments and were not assessed correctly, because these things frequently lead to very poor legislation that has terrible consequences and requires a huge amount of government action beyond them.

In this case, there are some issues around justice, whether the actions are proportionate and whether they do away with people’s livelihoods, which is probably unjust on the basis of the evidence. The Minister’s reported comments on the current market conditions for cigars bear no relation to commercially available market assessments, so there is a case for ensuring that we have the right evidence. The current impact assessments are not even a tick-box exercise—there is almost nothing in them apart from the tick in the box. I cannot think of anything we have done that has put on the table any cost-benefit analysis.

The case for the separation is strong. It does not obviate or undermine the core public policy objective or any movements around the central issues of health benefits, protecting children and the like in the other parts of the Bill. There is, of course, a vast difference, as has been said, between the mortality of handmade cigar smokers and cigarette smokers, not least given that cigars are not inhaled and are made from natural tobacco, as opposed to habitually inhaled cigarettes made with many additives and chemicals, as was expressed. I would love to say that I could remember or recite even one example cited—it was a magnificent piece of research—but a considerable number have terrible health consequences.

The impact assessment and Explanatory Notes make clear that the whole Bill is intended to target products that are deliberately branded for, promoted to and advertised to children. It is unclear that OTPs, especially cigars, fall into this category. They are not promoted with cartoons and are not part of an illicit trade on which trading standards are focused; they are specialist, niche and not present on convenience stores’ footprints. Again, all the Bill’s impacts are based on multiple chains and businesses for which these are marginal products.

The point was made that we lack the evidence to make this piece of legislation because DHSC, HMRC and the other relevant public bodies stopped collecting data on OTPs around 2012 because of their low usage, the age profile of the users and the fact that there is no evidence that they are a gateway product for the young. No assessment was required because the significance to public health was negligible. That is important as we balance things here because these products have a distinctive consumption pattern in the volume of people using them; in the mechanisms and types of usage, daily or occasional; and in their negligible youth appeal.

There is already market regulation. The price marketing and regulation are very different for those sorts of products. There is a cultural and economic consequence to this measure in skilled jobs, specialist retailers, hospitality and other areas. I am not so august to know the practices of the investment community when deciding issues with Governments—and whether a Romeo y Julieta seals the deal—but it is certainly clear that important luxury-end hotels, which are a big area for our economy and for the growth of our tourist economy, will be significantly affected by the availability of these sorts of products.

This is not to say that everyone uses them, but it is certainly true that the breadth of appeal in what Britain represents is very much that it caters for that sort of stuff. We need a proper assessment of the impact. There are many precedents for treating cigars differently, including in EU countries that are trying to do the same sort of thing in tourism under the tobacco products directive. It would be foolish of us not to have proper evidence before we put ourselves at a disadvantage.

This all speaks to making sure that enforcement is proportionate, practical and effective. I hope that, in responding to the debate we have had, the Minister will take away the fact not just that there is a very strong case, for those of us who have spent some time looking at this matter, but that the Government’s case probably has more costs than benefits currently. A proper impact assessment should be done in order to make sure that, as they move forward with this legislation, the Government can make proper provision for how we deal with OTPs.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the Committee of my previous declarations of interest: my wife is a non-executive director of both Tesco and Diageo; and I am an alumni member of the Lockeridge Cigar Smoking Society, to which the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, referred.

I am a huge and passionate supporter of this Bill. My motivations are largely because of the devastating costs to society and to our economy of cigarette smoking: the tens of thousands of deaths; the pressure on the NHS and our welfare system; and the devastating effect on families and communities. But, like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, I think that these amendments are very important, because if we are going to deploy the clunking fist of the nanny state to smoking roll-up cigarettes in our society, we should recognise that our legislation sometimes has unintended consequences, and we should do what we can, when we can, to mitigate the effects on those who are not the targets of our legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

Forgive me, but this is exactly why we need a proper impact study. In 2023, a different deal was done to supply cigars, and the prices have gone up significantly. Numbers and actual overall sales volumes are totally different, so it is misleading to introduce the idea that, just because the sales have gone up, the numbers have gone up. It is a directly inverse correlation because all of the prices have gone up. The UCL study shows that the big products that are moving are not tobacco products. Snus is a nicotine-based product, and shisha has gone up hugely, but that is not the same. It is important to be clear about these things. I urge the Minister to be very clear about the granularity of these figures because, otherwise, we end up in the wrong place.

[Lord Johnson of Lainston (Con)]

It is a very interesting statistic that 2.4% of 14 to 16 year-olds have tried cigars in the last 30 days. That does not sound quite right; maybe it did not come out right. I would be grateful if we could have clarification on that piece of data.

NHS: Patients with Allergies

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Thursday 12th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath for this debate and for such an excellent introduction. I associate myself with every point made by my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, and my noble friend Lady Healy. There is a strong view, from those who have some understanding of this matter, on the need to take significant action to upgrade where we are.

I state my interest, which is pretty similar to many others in that I am the father of two children who have allergies—one to a much more severe extent. I feel acutely that we were incredibly fortunate, when first finding out that one had a severe allergy, that we were in the unusual circumstance of having adequate medical care to support him. I always worry what would have happened if we were not in such a position at that stage, and I am sure that is the terror many parents experience when they first find out.

In this country, there has been a massive increase in allergies, for a variety of reasons, as research has shown. The extent to which this condition has increased—including hospital stays for severe incidents, which has gone up to 25,000 according to recent data—is a matter of not inconsiderable concern. Many points have been made, but I will say that, in relation to NHS provision, for anyone who has gone through this process, the system, in moving from children to adolescents to adults, is really not clear. More importantly, it is distorted around different parts of the country, as is the provision of specialist care, and it is extremely difficult for GPs to manage this. We have to rethink how we do that.

We also have to consider more carefully the situation with autoinjectors. It was only a short while ago that the UK was out of provision of the most significant autoinjector. We had to buy one which was not allowed in many other countries because it was ineffective. Even today it remains a very significant issue, in many circumstances, that the injectors either fail or are inadequate for the situation. That comes down on many occasions to needle size and the size of body that it has to go into. The Government really have not taken enough into consideration on what we should do on autoinjectors, and I urge them to do so.

It is important that the Government increase their work with industry. We saw in the tragic case of Natasha how Pret a Manger responded extremely well. There are willing partners out there and the Government could play a crucial role with them. There are many location-specific issues, such as the provision of autoinjectors on airlines and trains, and as illustrated by the Benedict Blythe Foundation, which has done tremendous work on this, the most significant location outside a home is school, so we need to make sure we have all the right provisions there.

On some of the treatments, desensitisation therapy can be effective, but we have woefully inadequate provision for it on the NHS, and, even then, it is geographically specific. There is still an awful lot yet to do. The work of some of the organisations, such as the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, in advocating for some of these courses has been groundbreaking, as has its research. I too am very pleased that it has been selected again for the Times this year.

Underlying that, the idea of introducing a tsar is essential and one the Government must give serious consideration to, simply because of the range of things that are needed through the entire journey that someone—and their parents—facing an allergy will go through. Having something that connects it is essential, and if there was one thing that I wish the Minister would take away from this discussion, it is understanding that piecemeal measures will be insufficient. We need something which will shepherd this as we face an ever-increasing demand on dealing with allergies across the NHS and, if something was to be done, then appointing a tsar would be an extremely welcome addition.

Covid-19: Vaccines and Medical Equipment

Lord Mendelsohn Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The UK has pledged more than £1 billion in aid to counter health, humanitarian and economic risks, including £829 million on the development and delivery of vaccines. I thank all those involved in the COVAX Facility, a multinational mechanism administered by Gavi which pools funding. The COVAX scheme is an emphatically impactful scheme. Britain has taken a leadership role in it, and I thank all those involved in its development.

[Lord Mendelsohn (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, it is essential that those at economic and social disadvantage be given proper access to a functioning distribution strategy. Can the Minister reassure the 200,000 people with blood cancer in the “extremely vulnerable” classification that they can rely on proper evaluation of the suitability of vaccines, treatments and equipment for their distinctive condition, and provide some insight into how construction of the prioritisation list will be undertaken to address the acute problem those in such circumstances face? In this regard, would the Minister be prepared to meet with representatives of Blood Cancer UK to take these matters forward?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord raises an important point about those with blood cancer. In fact, many who are in the “extremely vulnerable” group have conditions that may or may not be affected by the vaccine. We are working extremely hard to accommodate their particular needs. The JCVI has an extremely thoughtful prioritisation process. I would be happy to meet the group the noble Lord describes.